"The modern age has witnessed the rise of a number of new natural-law religions, such as liberalism, Communism, capitalism, nationalism and Nazism. These creeds do not like to be called religions, and refer to themselves as ideologies. But this is just a semantic exercise. If a religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order, then Soviet Communism was no less a religion than Islam."
Yuval Noah Harari, in "Sapiens" page 228
The more I think about it the more I think the book is a series of strained attempts to draw outrageous analogies. He writes that if you look at things in a certain way, drawing up the papers to form a corporation is the same as a priest saying mass, liberalism is a religion, or wheat actually domesticated us. Yes, but if you look at any two things in a certain way you can find resemblances but it doesn't provide any insight. The reader merely says 'hmmm that's interesting" and moves on.
I agree to a certain extent but religion is ridiculously impossible to define other then in academic terms where there are specific criteria. My thinking would be to dispense with the word religion once and for all and give everything the category ideology.
"Modern age" please define this period.
"Liberalism" has existed for like ever. It is the natural state of humans. As is totalitarianism.
Gangs of shits have always been. As have there been total assholes.
@TiberiusGracchus All the principles have existed since our first thinking. When the label was applied does not negate that reality.
Liberalism::: All the principles have existed since our first thinking. When the label was applied does not negate that reality.
@TiberiusGracchus, @Matias This is life. The few who are evil too often become rulers. This does not balance what most humans have thought is moral behavior. Tell me how you would have been any different 3,000 years ago?
@TiberiusGracchus Recent articles support that our behavior of cooperation is one of the major factors contributing to our survival. And, of course there have always been those few who are evil.
I loved that book, he has a very provocative way of looking at things. However religion is not a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order. It's based on believing in the existence of one or more Gods. That opening "if" is doing a whole lot of work there.
@nosferatu_cat You're right, not capital “G” god, but almost divine. Many Buddhists venerate their founder, Gautama Buddha, as a demigod. Some traditions claim a miraculous birth, while other traditions believe The Buddha was an avatar of the god Vishnu.
Granted, Buddhism is not the patriarchal, authoritative Jehovah/God/Allah type of religion, but it has its monastic system and is, in many Asian countries, politically involved. Until recently, I had thought Buddhism to be a pacifistic almost harmless religion, then I saw footage of Buddhist monks leading violent persecution of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.
Religion and communism are both examples of total system ideologies -- ideological systems which purport (falsely) to explain and include everything. Fascism and nazism were evil political ideologies, but not total system ideologies.
Nationalism arises when a society moves from a tribal one to the formation of a modern nation-state. It results from the transfer of totally to the larger social unit as that unit provides more meaning and quality of life. Limited nationalsim is a good thing -- a source of pride and purpose if the nation is framed as a true democracy. Extreme nationalism always results in bigotry and ethnocentirm, aggression and imperialism.
Capitalism is an economic ideology which many conservatives have elevated to almost the status of a religion. Well regulated capitalism (to control the destructive greed) works well in a mixed economy. Look at most of Western Europe and Japan.
Liberalism is not a religion, unless you include the extreme libertarian views of Ayn Rand.
So, Harari is only right in one comparison. All of the others are contrived.
@Beach_slim What in the hell does your comment have to do with the previous discussion? Your comment is extraneous, irrelevant, and ill-informed.
@Beach_slim You are back at your usual tricks -- hurling false insults at someone when you cannot respond with logic and facts.
@Beach_slim Stop playing stupid and deceptive games.
@Beach_slim Your assertions are as bad as your games. The price of real estate in Japan is simply due to the fact that the geographically small nations is home to 200 million people -- not to socialism. The real estate crash in Japan several years ago, was due to speculation gone wild -- nothing else. A simple case of too much money chasing too little land. It is amazing at the false crap that ideologues manufacture to blame on "socialism." Keep trying: You may yet get something right.
@Beach_slim You still have no clue of what you are talking about. Keep trying. You will eventually get something right.
Can someone explain to me how any of those "ideologies" is founded on the premise on belief in a superhuman order. How is this any different from a semantic exercise. The writer or author is creating a point of view from his own perspective. As Nietzsche says, there is no immaculate conception.
I find many like to disparage secular ideas by calling them religions using a definition of their own which allows them to feel better about their religion.
The point the author is making is that ideologies are not physically real, they are created by people, there's no right or wrong because they are just norms people believe in, but don't exist in the physical sense, much like how religions are. For example what is human rights, animals don't have a concept of rights, it's unnatural, it's only because humans make the idea a thing. It's just a different perspective of looking at ideologies
Look at N. Korea. They've deified the the kim family, humans tend to make ideals seem larger than life and hold those that represent them almost as high.